David Cameron’s greatest achievement to date has been to turn his failure to win the 2010 election into a success story: the formation of a bipartisan government fit for a moment of national economic crisis.

To a Londoner, E1 sounds like the inner city. The five square miles of swirling, barren hilltops perched on the edge of the Judean desert that make up Jerusalem’s E1 could not be further from the bustling streets of Whitechapel.

Today's strikes across the eurozone, especially in Spain, Portugal and Greece, are a reminder that despite this week’s gloomy economic news here — higher inflation and today, a jump in the third-quarter unemployed claimant count — things are still not as bad as in much of Europe. But the strikes are also a warning of instability ahead, which will unavoidably harm our economy.